This invention relates to a compact, portable balloon signalling system by which a person may identify his/her location if lost or injured.
Emergency signalling systems utilizing inflatable balloons have been known for some time as evident by U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,862,531, 3,381,655, 3,735,723, 3,941,079, 4,094,267, 4,416,433 and 4,800,835. Such devices are designed generally to allow for inflation and elevation of a balloon to mark the location of a lost or injured party. These devices are especially useful in heavily wooded, mountainous or remote locations. The balloon, which is elevated above the person in distress, is more easily seen by both airborne and ground based search parties than would be the distressed person himself, to thus enable the rapid location and bringing of aid to the person.
The devices heretofore proposed have typically been either cumbersome, bulky and difficult to manipulate and use or overly complicated in construction and thus quite costly.